


Nothing Will Ever Be The Same

by NyeLew



Series: Turretverse [8]
Category: Stargate - All Series
Genre: AI, Alternate Universe - Stargate Atlantis, Stargate, Turretverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-09-01
Packaged: 2018-02-14 22:39:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2205645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NyeLew/pseuds/NyeLew
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Back on Earth the ISA is attempting to establish a planetary network of highly-skilled scientists, military personnel and other specialists in order to combat the Goa'uld siege of Earth. Among these scientists is Jeannie Miller, the sister of Dr Rodney McKay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Earth, 1 month after the Expedition launch_

Jeannie Miller hadn’t thought Canada would be at war any time in the next several decades, but war had come quickly, and with the most unlikely of opponents. It’s not as if she hadn’t ever considered the possibility of alien life – she was a scientist, or she had been once, so she understood the intellectual arguments both in favour and against. But that had been a purely intellectual exercise, something which she didn’t expect to be proven in her life time, or even Madison’s.

Instead of lofty scientific debate or speculation by sci-fi fans she’d turned on the news to find that Earth was at war with an alien species and had been for quite some time. At first she assumed it was some sort of prank, some social experiment – anything except the cold, hard truth. And then the attacks had come, and it was revealed that the ‘disturbance’ over the Antarctic was actually the first dogfight in the war for Earth.

She’d tried to contact Meredith, who she _knew_ had to be involved in this – otherwise why would he spend so long working for the US military without publishing a damned thing? They hadn’t had the best relationship for years, but Jeannie had never given up her subscriptions to peer-reviewed physics journals, and her brother’s name had simply stopped appearing some years ago.

Some calls to the right agencies had pointed her in the right direction, and eventually she was told her brother was ‘away on a top-secret mission’, but that almost nobody in the world had the security clearance to know where. She probably wasn’t even allowed to know that, but the knowledge had spurred her into action. She needed to find some way to protect her family, to protect Kaleb and Maddie; so she had picked up her pen and whiteboard and started working on physics again.

There’d been calls for qualified scientists of all fields to work in the war effort – a lot of material had been recently declassified and made available for use, although she suspected all of the interesting developments were still locked away behind non-disclosure agreements. That actually hadn’t mattered to her: she’d been thinking about this one thing for months now, since before this war even broke out – or at least since before she knew about it, anyway.

Then, she hadn’t thought there would be any possible practical use for it. But after war broke out Jean had worked on it and published it, and made the right phone calls – all through one of her oldest friends, a lady called Jane who now worked for the ISA – and she’d received an interview with one of the science recruitment offices of the ISA.

She’d gotten a call not a week later asking her to attend an interview session in London, the _UK_ London and not the one in Canada, for that afternoon. She’d almost declined then are there, since it would have been impossible to get there quickly enough, but then she’d been _dematerialised_ and beamed halfway across the planet to the sleek new ISA office in London.

Recruitment to the ISA was decidedly international, with successful applicants being sent all across the planet in order to be most effective. Engineers and physicists were in short supply, especially those of the right skillset and experience.

She suspected she would have to relocate to London if this was a job interview, but then – with the fleet of starships Earth had quickly cobbled together, which somehow had _teleportation technology_ (and that had worried her once she had thought of its implications: had the _real_ her died on the journey over, and the her that was present at the office was merely an identical close? Yet another worrying prospect brought on by current events.), so perhaps a relocation would not be so bad.

“Jean McKay Miller? If you would follow me, please,” said a tall, gaunt but crisply dressed young Indian woman with the thickest Welsh accent Jeannie had ever heard. Jean stood, brushed herself down quickly, suddenly self-conscious of the seldom-worn interview dress, and followed the woman through a series of glass rooms.

“Who will I be meeting today?” she asked. “It’s just that I haven’t really been told any details.”

“I’m sorry about that,” said the woman. “My name is Radhika. It’s a bit busy here, as you can probably guess. You’ll be meeting with Colonel Samantha Carter, the woman currently in charge of the London branch of the ISA.”

“This is a military organisation?” she said, somewhat taken aback. Although, given that Earth faced a war for its very existence perhaps that wasn’t such a surprise.

“Not quite. Colonel Carter is here to oversee the staffing of this branch – it’s the most important European branch of the ISA because of the shipyards – because she has substantial experience with the Stargate programme, and has personally fought many Goa’uld warlords. She actually created the computer we use to activate the Stargate. But when she is done here, she goes back to off-world missions.” Radhika lowered her voice slightly. “Between you and me, I think she’s tipped to command one of the new battleships.”

Jeannie followed her then, taking her time to look around the new building. It had been constructed mostly out of glass, with a sleek, modern layout. Several of the glass cubicles had black, opaque glass, which suggested some sort of control over how open or private any given space was. Despite the war the ISA clearly had money to spend.

“This is the Colonel’s office,” said Radhika, stopping outside of just one such glass cube. “Good luck! I read your proof, by the way. Most of it went way over my head, but I can tell you’re what we need.”

“Oh! Thank you,” said Jeannie, and then stepped through the glass door – which had slid open for her.

“Dr Miller,” said the Colonel when she entered the room. “Or would you prefer Mrs? Your file didn’t say,” she said, standing to offer her hand. “I worked … extensively with your brother Rodney. You can call me Sam,” she said, and then indicated that Jeannie should sit down.

“Do you know where he is?” she asked, almost before she could stop herself. “It’s just that, the last time I spoke to Mer we had an argument, and… with everything that’s happened…”

“I’m sorry, Mer?”

“Meredith. That’s his name, you know, not _Rodney_. Well, that’s his name too, but I’ve always called him Mer.”

“I see,” said the colonel. “I can’t tell you anything specific, I’m really sorry about that. It’s way above my paygrade to decide who gets access to _that_ information.”

“I understand. Is it… is it safe?”

“Nowhere is safe,” said Carter bitterly. “But Rodney – well, as far as we know, it isn’t on the frontlines. But it’s a limited contact situation, even with us.”

“Thank you for telling me that,” said Jean. It was sincere – perhaps not the answer she would have liked to receive, but at least better than nothing. At least he wasn’t on the front lines.

“Your proof generated considerable interest at the SGC. I actually wanted to snap you up so you could come work with us, but we’re having a real hard time finding scientists qualified to work in other parts of the ISA, and I think you’d be perfect for a job I have to fill here.”

“What does it involve? I want to help, but I’m not a soldier… I can’t go to war, not really.”

“We understand that. At first it will be an intensive three month training course here at the London office, but then… I think we’d like to have you aboard an EU ship. There’s one in construction here in the shipyards right now, so your training will have lots of practical components. The physics involved are quite complex, but you’ve already proven that you have the head for it.” She paused. “Honestly, after meeting Rodney, I kind of assumed any siblings he had would be exactly like him.”

Jeannie was about to protest, but then Carter continued, so she held her tongue. After all, she did want to help.

“But you’re much less prickly. It pays well, and the ISA would pay for your relocation – we’ve got housing sorted out for any employees who need to relocate.”

“What sort of NDA would I have to sign?”

“I have a copy of it here. We can get you started immediately, or you can have a few days to think it over… but we would really like to see you join the programme.”

Sam paused, then looked down at the stack of papers on her desk, and then at the stack of files next to them.

“I really shouldn’t say this, but you have a strong chance of being selected for a future mission which would take you to where Rodney is, if you agree to start out immediately. It won’t be a permanent posting like Rodney’s, but… that’s all I can say. I only have clearance because I’m involved in everything that happens with the Stargate, one way or another…”

Jeannie took a deep breath. This was probably the biggest decision she had ever made, even bigger than when she had decided to give up a career in research to be a mother.

“Okay. I’ll do it.”

Sam relaxed visibly and pushed over a stack of forms. “You’ll need to sign these, but then I am going to personally give you a pre-training crash course.”

*

Kaleb had been supportive throughout their whole relationship, but Jean gained a greater appreciation of just how fortunate she was to have such an understanding and supportive husband. Mer had suggested during their last conversation that Kaleb was forcing her to stay at home ‘barefoot and pregnant’, but Kaleb had actually taken her brother’s side in the argument. He had wanted her to continue with her career, but in the end it had been her decision to make, and she had made the decision she felt was the best decision.

And now she had done that again, and he had agreed to pack up and move to London. It would mean finding a new job, which would possibly be difficult, but money wasn’t that important. When Sam had told her her new job would pay well she had been understating it – and with all their housing costs paid by the ISA, that money would go even further. Not that money seemed all that important anymore anyway, not with the threat of destruction looming overhead.

After their interview Sam had sat her down to give a first-hand account of the history of the Stargate programme, and of the nature of the conflict between Goa’uld and humans. At first it sounded like something out of a bad sci-fi movie, but the reality of the situation told her otherwise. Whatever the particulars of the conflict, it was real and it was happening, and the whole world knew about it. Sam had even been taken as a ‘host’ once, something which had left permanent marks on her physiology.

And even after all that Sam had recommended Jeannie take the offer of a cutting-edge genetic therapy designed to… something, just in case. _And_ to accept a load of prototype nanites, but she had politely refused the nanites. Genetic manipulation was actually not that scary, at least not with how common it had become as a research subject. Nanites, though – Jeannie would rather view the code herself, first.

The sheer amount of history surrounding the Stargate and the Stargate programme was something of an overwhelming thought, especially since she’d been given all that information _and_ all the scientific advancements to look over. Already she had needed to accept new paradigms and accept that so much of what they knew was simply _wrong_ in order to even progress to learning about her new job.

Which had been vaguely defined; as a rule, postings at the SGC – and later the ISA – tended to be either strictly defined or incredibly poorly defined, with not much in between. Either you were only a cook or you were a ship’s engineer-cum-hyperdrive-tech-cum-nanite-specialist-cum-wormhole-theorist… and she could go on for _hours_. Sam had given her a book she’d written on wormholes and wormhole physics, complete with the assertion that ‘you never knew’ when a working knowledge of wormhole physics could come in handy. Jeannie didn’t want to go off-world, at least not outside of Earth’s general location … which was dangerous enough to begin with, with the Goa’uld fleets’ constant assault.

The move took barely any time at all. Kaleb and Maddie were beamed over to England after they’d packed the essential belongings and sent the rest into storage. Their new house was lovely, on the outskirts of London – Jeannie wasn’t exactly sure where yet, since she hadn’t had much free time. Almost every waking moment had been spent learning about new kinds of physics, or coming up with a working knowledge of the current conflict, learning the names of the various ISA branch heads.

There had been some things she’d wanted to tell Kaleb but wasn’t allowed, but that she had told him anyway. And then there were the things she wasn’t allowed to tell him and actively wanted him never to know, since it would be too upsetting or too pointless for him know. That had put more of strain on their relationship than anything, she he could tell there were things she kept from him.

But he understood that these were things better left to those he needed to know, at least intellectually. Or that’s what she hoped, because this could easily drive a wedge between the two of them.

Maddie, at least, seemed to be enjoying her new adventure in England and had asked to go see the Queen. Jeannie had wanted to take her to at least see Buckingham Palace, but couldn’t see any break in her tight schedule – so Kaleb had offered to do it instead, since he wasn’t working.

So Jeannie felt guilty, but her resolve hadn’t weakened. She was doing this _for_ her family. This was one way which she could help, do something tangible – and Mer had always said she’d go back to science one day. He just didn’t have the right reason. Or maybe he had; he’d been involved in this for almost as long as Sam, so he’d lived with this over his head for years now.

Whatever the outcome of the war, Jeannie Miller was determined to do her part. She felt almost like some 1930s housewife joining the Women’s Land Army, but this was different. She didn’t have to fight. She could build, and theorise, and develop new technologies… and help keep her daughter safe.


	2. Chapter 2

_The United Kingdom, Earth – 1 month into training_

Experienced officers from the SGC had been at the London training facility – which was really somewhere in Kent, underground – to provide structured one-to-one training sessions for new recruits. Sam had decided to help train Jeannie, which she was grateful for. Jeannie had read some of her mission reports, and the woman was simply exceptional. A true hero who had survived countless encounters with the Goa’uld, had even had a Tok’ra inside her.

“So how’s life after the Stargate treating you?” said Sam after a lull in conversation. They’d been going over how the prototype hyperdrive on the ship. It was Earth’s second major attempt at the technology, the first having been somewhat less than safe. Three different designs were in each of the new ships, but Jeannie had looked over them herself and they all seemed to be about as likely to work…

“It’s hard,” she said. She couldn’t think of how to put it, exactly. “It’s. I’m sure it isn’t as difficult as it was for you, going off-world all the time, before we even knew anything really. But it’s just so different. This time six months ago I’d have been playing with Maddie, or catching up on some light reading… I just don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“It gets easier. And harder.”

“I kind of figured. I’ve been in space so many times now it’s just silly. I can’t even think about what it would be like to travel through a wormhole, even though theoretically it should be about the same as a transporter ring.” She paused. It sounded silly, thinking about all these things when Earth was in a more or less constant state of siege. Nine ships constantly patrolled the space around Earth, all the way out to Mars. Beyond that Goa’uld ships came and went, and launched the occasional attack. Thus far the Earth fleet had proven enough of a match to make them wait, but that would end soon. She just knew it would.

“We’re not in as bad of a bind as people think, you know,” said Sam. “We didn’t think it would ever get to this point, so don’t take that the wrong way. But the Tok’ra have finally seen sense, and the Jaffa are ready to rise up at any minute. Hopefully it’ll be enough to draw their attention away from us long enough to get some ships out to the Asgard.”

“I…” Jeannie wasn’t actually sure if she was allowed to ask what she was about to ask, but a large part of these training sessions had been the gift of first-hand knowledge and experiences about the programme and its history. Sam told her, explicitly, things that others had had the time to learn through implicit understanding and osmosis. Maybe this was one of those times.

“The dossier on the Asgard said they think we’ve made poor choices and continue to withhold key pieces of knowledge. Would they still be willing to help us?”

Sam sighed.

“It’s… complicated. The Asgard have a very good personal relationship with some humans, but overall think we are approaching certain problems in the wrong way. They’ve made their own bad choices, so they don’t hate us or wish us any harm, but we have a frosty relationship. They think we’re too aggressive, and before now I thought they had a point, but it’s past the point where we can be choosy about our methods.”

“And the Tok’ra?”

“Nothing if not self-interested. They don’t want us to fall to the Goa’uld. If we go, they lose a persistent thorn in the Goa’ulds’ side. They’re vastly outnumbered by the Goa’uld and because they don’t use sarcophagi they die faster. We agreed to carry out some operations for them in exchange for the hyperdrive technology we walked through today… in a far less functional state. It took a lot of people a lot of time to get them adapted to Earth ships.”

“We just have to keep at it. We have certain plans in place for a number of different situations. But you should know that by now – there was an information pack on it, right?”

Jeannie nodded. Those had been the most frightening but also the most interesting. There were several off-world locations considered more or less safe from the Goa’uld and ‘any other’ possible enemy forces, and there were rumours of a secret protocol designed for use if the unthinkable happened and Earth fell. She didn’t know what that entailed, but suspected Sam _did_. Not that she’d breach security clearance rules to tell her exactly what it was, but that didn’t matter because hopefully that protocol wouldn’t ever see the light of day.

“Have you received genetic therapy yet?” asked Sam, clearly changing the subject.

“Yes, I have… it’s weird, but until the doctor told me I had new genes I couldn’t have told you. I suppose there’s no reason I’d feel different, except about a week or two ago I started sensing the ship! The naquadah treatment is a success, apparently.”

The new treatment was something of a gamble – it was based on similar but different principles to the tried and true method for ATA (or so Jeannie had read), but was different somehow because of the genes involved. Jeannie didn’t really understand the science behind it, since it wasn’t her field, but it’s not like it hadn’t been tested before.

“Welcome to the club!” said Sam cheerfully. “Truthfully, we’re not totally sure how useful the new treatments are going to be. But there’s a lot of cool Goa’uld tech that needs the markers, and we’re hoping to get our hands on more of it.”

“You can use them already, right?” said Jeannie. There’d been an information pack on the must-have Goa’uld items. Something called a _kara-kesh_ and a healing device.

“Not very well. I didn’t host Jolinar for long enough to express the markers properly, or so I’ve been told. The genetic therapy produces levels closer to a long term host, so you should be better than I am, in theory.”

“I haven’t told Kaleb yet,” Jeannie admitted. “It’s all still a bit weird for me, but after reading how the technology is locked to certain markers I can see how it’s necessary. But everything is just so different than it was before.”

She felt strange about how she felt, which was … weird. It was difficult to put a name to the feelings. A kind of general unease about the direction her life was taking, but with the complete realisation that all of her actions were necessary and _important_. She had the right skills. She had the intellectual background to jump into this right away – she understood her choices, knew her motivations, and was sure that this was the right path to be taking. But the number of changes to her life, to herself – to her _genetic makeup_ – all seemed so sudden.

“Nothing’s been the same since I first joined the programme,” said Sam after a few moments. “Some choices I’ve made I’d make differently, given the chance… but not the choices which led me to the Stargate programme. This is important, and it sounds arrogant to put these words to it, but I am one of the only people on the planet capable of doing what I do. Not because I’m special, or because it’s my destiny or fate. But because of the choices I’ve made and the experiences I’ve had. Because I want to do what I can do. Before, it was about being an astronaut. I had personal goals and motives, and that was enough. But now it’s about something else, something bigger.”

Jeannie relaxed. It was sort of what she’d wanted to hear, because she felt some things akin to that herself – though she was obviously not so experienced as Sam, she recognised her own expertise. She’d had to in order to progress through the intensive training.

“Thanks.”

“I was worried for a moment you thought I was going all gung-ho patriotic on you,” said Sam. “But it’s bigger than national boundaries. This is the first true test of the people of Earth, and I think we’ve done well.”

Jeannie had to agree. At first there had been riots and civil unrest, but quickly order had been maintained and the various bodies organised, and a response was fast. The EU had morphed into something closer to a superstate than what it was before, but Jeannie thought problems would arise once the current crisis was dealt with. Even the Middle East had calmed somewhat, and the ISA was quietly transforming large parts of Africa… but it all seemed so fragile. Everything they did was protected only by a dwindling supply of irreplaceable weapons and the thrown together ships they’d managed to produce.

“What’s the story with nanites?” she decided to ask. She’d been wondering that for some time, since prior to the training nanites had only ever been a far-off, extremely distant, innovation.

“Those are … controversial,” said Sam. “We’ve encountered something like this before, but it was different to ours… we have had some help on the core elements of design. But mostly our designs come from AIs and specialised researchers. They’re still in beta, but tests have shown significant benefits.”

“Did you get them?”

“Ah, not yet,” admitted Sam. “I see the use in them, but I want to hold off until they’re more stable.”

“That’s another thing! AI! I thought that was the Holy Grail of robotics and neuroscience, but apparently we’ve already got it!”

“Those are… those were handy. Totally based on Earth research, at least in the beginning. But they’ve sort of stalled, since the head researcher in that area is… unavailable.”

Jeannie caught her hesitation immediately. She suspected he was where Rodney was, where maybe all of Earth’s best scientists had been sent. For what reason? Safety? Important research? But Rodney wasn’t an AI researcher… or maybe he was; Jeannie honestly didn’t know much of what he had researched. Some information packs referenced a recently made available paper by him, but there was precious little on his current research.

“Can’t they improve themselves? Isn’t that part of the point?”

Sam frowned, and then Jeannie thought she’d made some uncomfortable suggestion.

“That’s, uh, the answer is no. The reason is classified.”

“We should probably get back to the hyperdrive stuff,” said Jeannie. “I’m still not sure how to replace the crystals in the right order…”

*

After Sam’s stint at the London ISA office ended, Jeannie had thought that the training would continue on as planned. Something she hadn’t expected, however, was for Prince William to conduct a royal tour of the shipyards. She hadn’t really been a republican, but even she felt that wasn’t strictly necessary. It was certainly disruptive, as she’d been itching to get her hands on the ring transporter system for almost a month now, and it had been delayed further in order for the Prince’s visit.

It was ridiculous! The world was at war, and everything had to shut down so that the heir to the throne could come for a viewing. It was no doubt part of some plan to pacify the population and to generate support for the war effort, but Jeannie had decided it was annoying and disruptive.

Still, she’d gotten the chance to catch up with Major Cakebread, one of the military engineers who would be in service on the still-to-be-christened ship. The major was a typical – or what she thought of as typical, anyway – upper class Englishman, complete with public school education and tenuous connection to the Crown. But she found him to be friendly enough, and more intelligent than she would have liked him to be, not that she felt threatened exactly. But he had a military sort of mind, which was appropriate given the circumstances.

“You know, Miller,” he said, “I think Wills is here to name the ship.”

“Really? Already?” That actually did surprise her. “It isn’t read yet!”

“It’s about there,” he said, and shrugged. “At the end of the day it’s something for the people to be proud of. I imagine there’ll be a news pack disseminated afterwards. Something nice and patriotic about how Britain’s shipyards are producing the first in a line of new, high-tech ships that can take the fight back to the Goa’uld. It’s like the good old days of Empire, only without the dirty exploitation.”

“I suppose,” she said. “I think because we’re here all the time we become desensitised to it all, but Kaleb – well, sometimes I forget he doesn’t know what I know.”

“I feel the same way about Susannah,” he said. “But there’s nothing we can do about it. This should raise spirits, eh?”

Just then an announcement rang out over the PA system. All ship crew members and construction personnel were to gather in the hanger for a ceremony of some sort. Jeannie felt glad she’d worn the proper uniform today – the one with the ridiculous number of patches signifying that she was from Canada, working for the UK, _as part of_ the EU. Three patches, one over another. Ridiculous.

“Better get to it,” she said, mourning the loss of her afternoon spent actually working with the ring transporters. The Asgard had better technology that did the same thing, but that wasn’t helpful when they only had rings. Her learning about the rings was useful.

When everyone had gathered in the hanger, predictably the Heir Apparent gave some sort of speech which Jeannie didn’t listen to, instead looking over some schematics on a tablet computer. She did, however, catch the end of his speech.

“I am pleased to name this ship, the _HMS Elizabeth II_ , and to press her into service for the British Crown, and the EU continent of the International Stargate Authority fleet. I thank every one of the men and women here today, and wish you the best of luck. To victory!”

And that was that.


	3. Chapter 3

_The Miller House – 2 months into training_

Jeannie had gotten a rare day off, and she had chosen to spend it at home with Maddie and Kaleb. Maddie had settled into the ISA school fast – as kids so often did better than adults – and Kaleb had made a few friends. She felt guilty constantly that she was gone so much – even when Kaleb was working he spent more time at home than she did now, but the situation was different. She told herself that every day. Kaleb had even told her that. She knew it was true. Nothing in history had ever been quite like this. This was truly uncharted territory – so Jeannie had decided to spend the whole day with Maddie and Kaleb in London so that Maddie could see the Palace, if not the Queen herself.

They’d had a wonderful day out. London had been probably more muted than usual, but the true capacity for resilience and perseverance of the human race had really come to the foreground in recent months. People the world over had come together to work for their communities, to provide help to the war effort, to really make a difference. There had been nihilists, terrorists, riots… and those hadn’t stopped, but they had become less and less important. Theirs was a world uniquely placed to fight the Goa’uld – as much as that sounded exactly like the ISA propaganda, it was also true. There were billions of people on Earth, a number unheard of throughout most of the galaxy. They had industrial capabilities and an understanding of complex physics complete enough to let them learn from their experiences and build up a defence.

It was enough to make her feel okay about her choices. Almost.

After Madison had gone to bed, Jeannie decided to tell Kaleb some of the things she had been keeping from him.

“There are some things I haven’t told you,” she said after her second glass of wine. She’d needed the fortification.

“Okay,” he said, and grasped her hand in his. They always did that when they had something important to say; it helped them both to remember that no matter what, they loved each other and wanted to be supportive.

“I’ve received some genetic therapies at work, and I’m expressing some new genes.” That one had been the most difficult to say, since she didn’t know how he would feel about that. Her genes made her her, in many ways.

“I… what is it for? Is it experimental? Is it safe? What about for… in case we want…”

“They were very clear that it wouldn’t affect any children I might want to have in the future,” she said. “I wouldn’t have agreed to it otherwise. It only affects me, and it’s important. Certain bits of technology only work for people with the right genetics… Sam, she’s one of the people in charge of things, I suppose, she said Meredith’s had it too, and hundreds of other people working in the ISA.”

“Has she had it?”

“She didn’t need to. There’s… I can’t tell you why, but she already had some of the right markers.”

“Okay. Okay. You’re still you, right?”

She nodded.

“There are… there are contingency plans in place in case of—in case of everything, and I can’t give you specifics but you and Maddie will be safe.” Jeannie’s immediate family would be some of the first people to be evacuated, after high-ranking personnel and other essential people. It stung that they treated people as more or less expendable than others, but the cold logician inside her knew it was the only fair way of deciding things. She would be on a ship no matter what happened, but she wasn’t _safe_. Nobody was safe. “Or as safe as anyone can be.”

“What about you? What will you be doing? You said there’s a lot of things you can’t tell me; I understand that, Jean. But I’m worried about you.”

“I’m going to be a ship’s engineer. For at least one rotation, anyway, then I think they want me to do some work on power generation. God, Kaleb! The things I’m learning. Did you know we have clean energy generators capable of powering a mid-sized European city?”

“I didn’t,” he said. “So even though the war is going on some good is coming from it.”

“We’re mostly just using them on ships and at the Antarctic base for now,” she admitted. “But once we have a steady supply of naquadah we can start rolling them out for use in civilian locations.”

She decided now was probably a good time to tell him that she’d decided to take some combat certifications.

“I’ve decided to become combat trained,” she said. “I’m not joining the army or anything like that, but I should know how to use a gun.” She squeezed his hand. “I know what I’ve said about guns before, Kal,” she said, “but it’s the most sensible thing for me to do. If the Jaffa board my ship…”

“That’s… war,” he said eventually. “I don’t like it, but I know _you_ don’t like it either. And I know that you wouldn’t do something like this if you didn’t think it was necessary. If we weren’t at war… if there weren’t aliens docked just outside the solar system… if, if, if,” he said.

She hugged him.

“I worry sometimes that you won’t be the woman I married when all this is done,” he said, and she tensed. “But I want to come on as much of the journey as I can, so I can understand. I know you can’t tell me everything but what you can tell me I’d like to know. I love you, Jeannie Miller.”

“I love you too.”

And she did, and always would. Kaleb had been the best husband she could have ever asked for. He was supportive, he was kind, he was thoughtful. He wasn’t perfect, but neither was she. They had fought like dogs at one time or another, but they always endured. People had lived through wars before, and as strange and alien as this current war was, countless worlds in the galaxy had fought this kind of war before. Earth had experience fighting the Goa’uld. People had died, and the expertise was hard won, but enough still lived to fight on, and to train others how to fight, too.

She felt better now that she had spoken with Kaleb although nothing had truly changed – Earth was still besieged and with reluctant allies, outgunned and outnumbered… but there were many different operations running in parallel, all tasked with finding some way of hurting the Goa’uld. They could do this.

*

The ship had been commissioned and pressed into service fully, making its maiden flight into Earth’s upper atmosphere. Jeannie had been to space before many times on training missions and for intercontinental travel, but this time was different. This time she was a working engineer on the ship, and the ranking civilian scientist. That had been strange for her when she’d realised it, but her position actually put her in charge of the ship’s civilian staff. She answered to Colonel Loxley, the man in charge of the ship, of course, but the civilian staff looked to _her_ for their daily routines when stationed as part of the Earth Defence Fleet.

The new ships had been tentatively called BC-304H class due to the new hyperdrive system in use aboard the ships. Their first real mission had been a test of the hyperdrive, in fact, since the _HMS Elizabeth II_ was the first of the three new flagships to finish construction. Their mission was to open a hyperspace window and sneak past the Goa’uld blockade to pick up and drop off some supplies from an off-world location without a Stargate. That base had been cut off for some time, although the Tok’ra had been able to send over some emergency supplies.

It was as much a critical mission as it was a test of the system, and that worried Jeannie. It would be the first appreciable length of time she had been away from home – she worked often, and long hours, but she always _went back home_ at the end of the day. This was different. Everything was different, though, and she’d adapted. She’d grown.

“Miller!” barked the Colonel. “Are we ready to go yet?”

She glanced down at her terminal. Nothing was flashing that wasn’t supposed to be flashing, and a quick scan of her tablet showed that her team hadn’t reported any anomalies or problems.

“We’re ready to go. I can count us down if you’d like.”

“That won’t be necessary,” he said, and then nodded to the communications officer. “Attention crew! This is Colonel Charles Loxley, Commander of the _HMS Elizabeth II_ of the Earth Defence Fleet. We are about to commence the first hyperspace journey using our own hyperdrives. Dr Miller, if you could see us out in 3… 2… 1… Go!”

Jeannie did it, and she felt a shiver of excitement running up her spine. This was historic, truly historic – if it worked. If it didn’t it would be on her head, since she was in charge… but it worked, and soon the ship was travelling through subspace to a distant star system.

The bridge erupted into cheers and congratulations, and Cakebread glanced over at her from the weapons terminal.

“You know, for a moment I thought the drive would fail, you know, like it did during the test phases. But it didn’t! Let’s only hope the weapons are the same way, eh?”

That was Cakebread for you, really, supposed Jeannie. He did have a point with the weapons – they’d mounted a prototype Tau cannon in addition to the standard railgun placements – but she hoped they wouldn’t have to use them.

“I want to go see how she’s running,” said Jeannie after a while. Now that they were safely on their way Jeannie didn’t have all that much to do on the bridge, and taking a look at how the hyperdrive held up under actual use was at least an efficient use of her time.

“As you will,” said Cakebread, looking back down at his terminal. He probably wouldn’t even get to use the Tau cannon any time soon, at least not until the next Goa’uld attack. They’d been designed to pierce Goa’uld shields specifically, so there was a lot of hope from the ISA and the SGC that they’d prove useful additions to the ship.

Part of the reason for the new class of ship had been because of the number of new technologies and systems that had gone into it, some of which had necessitated a change in the core design of the ships. The automated systems had proven difficult to integrate, and actually required a full-time specialist on board to deal with any hiccups they might produce.

A French woman named Sandrine who was, surprisingly, in the hyperdrive chamber watching it go.

“ _Merde, c’est magnifique, non?_ ” she said when Jeannie entered the room. They were shielded from the radiation the hyperdrive itself produced, but this area provided the only point of contact they could actually have with the inner workings.

“It is amazing,” she said. “We’re travelling so quickly! Already we’re well past Earth’s system.”

“The AI software, he is running fine. I think we have a problem possibly with the power, but it is not unexpected, no?”

Jeannie sighed, but agreed with her.

“No, we thought that might be a bit of a problem. But I think we can hook up an extra generator if the on board systems fail…”

“ _Oui_ , so there is not a problem yet. This is good!”

“It is.”

Sandrine had complained many times that the AI pioneer responsible for so much of their programming was unavailable, seemingly completely gone from Earth’s sphere of influence. Jeannie knew something about that, though frustratingly not enough to actually tell the other woman anything even if it weren’t classified. Apparently, Dr Zelenka hadn’t annotated his code sufficiently, and it was proving difficult for other scientists to develop his work further.

“This is the first European operation, you know?” said the other woman. “It is historic for us, the people of Europe. But your people have been fighting from the beginning, did you know? The Canadiens and Americains, then the Russians and Chinois.. And finally the rest of the world. We live in strange times, Jeanne.”

Jeannie had heard some of the enlisted men complain that they found Sandrine difficult to understand, but Jeannie actually liked the way she spoke. It was unabashedly French, but it added a lovely quality to her voice. Although she supposed she was biased since French was everywhere in Canada – or it seemed that way sometimes, at least.

“It’s so strange to think it’s only going to take us nine days to get where we’re going! Sam – you know Sam Carter, she spoke about wormholes a few weeks ago? – well, she said that the Asgard have ships capable of crossing the galaxy in only a few days!”

“ _Mon dieu,_ the power requirements would be so large! We are so far behind… and yet, so far ahead of where we were ten years ago!”

Just then, Jeannie’s earpiece buzzed.

_“Dr Miller to the bridge, Dr Miller to the bridge. Commander needs to talk shielding.”_

“I have to go, Sandrine… something about shielding technology, I’m not sure what it is exactly.”

“We will talk later, mm? I will stay here; the hyperdrive, she is calming.”


	4. Chapter 4

_P4Q-788 – 3 months into training_

The mission had taken a little bit longer than anyone had thought. The hyperdrive thankfully hadn’t failed at all, but the shield generator decided to putter out of functionality three days after they had arrived at the off-world mining base.

That had been an ironic twist – part of their mission had been to install a new shield system at the mining base, and they’d ended up having to fix the one on their own ship. It had given Jeannie and the other scientists their first real taste of what work on board a ship as an ISA scientist would actually entail, and it had been interesting.

P4Q-788 was Earth’s main source of trinium, which was used extensively in all sorts of different technologies – the hull of every Earth ship being the primary destination for everything they mined, bought or even stole, in some cases. The base hadn’t seen a proper resupply in weeks, and everyone was anxious to hear about how the situation on Earth had been proceeding.

She wished she’d had something better to tell them, but the truth was that the Goa’uld blockade still held – at least mostly, since their ship had slipped through. Now that they had hyperdrives maybe something could change, and they could go on more wide-ranging operations. Take the fight to the Goa’uld, though she did secretly hope she could stay working for the EDF.

“Colonel, repairs to the shield generator are finished,” she said, standing up and brushing herself down. “We’re ready to go as and when.” She closed the panel she was working from and turned to exit the hyperdrive chamber.

“Understood, Dr Miller.”

She hoped they’d be able to go soon, since she’d been out on exercise for over a fortnight now and was anxious to get home. If they pushed the hyperdrive just a little they could cut it down to six days – maybe she’d make the suggestion… they did need to test the hyperdrive under stress conditions.

One of the base’s female officers was waiting for her when she emerged from the ship for one last stroll in the open air. Lieutenant Addams, who also happened to be a geologist.

“Hey, I wanted to speak to you before you left… ask a favour, since I won’t be getting back to Earth any time soon. There’s a letter for my mom, and … well, this is sort of embarrassing, but we thought it best if I asked you, rather than Colonel Loxley.”

“Oh, uh, of course,” she said. She didn’t mind sending a letter to someone’s _mom_ ; it was the least she could do. “If it doesn’t have any classified information in it…”

“No, it doesn’t have any of that. Thank you. The address is written on the envelope, but I can’t give you money for stamps because… well, I don’t have any money when I’m here. But I wanted to ask you if on the next supply run you could bring us a dozen extra boxes of condoms.”

“Um.”

“I know what you’re thinking, but trust me… we all need a little off-time, you know? Most of us girls are single, and …” she shrugged.

“No, I think I get it.” And she did, really – she’d read about the things the Antarctic research scientists (pre-weapons platform discovery, at least) got up to. It was human nature, and from what Adams had told her previously it sounded like a woman’s market in that regard. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks a ton. You all set to go back?”

“I really miss my daughter,” she said. “It’ll be nice to get back, but then I start a three month rotation in orbit as part of the defence array…”

“I’m glad I decided not to have kids now, even if it cost me my marriage.” She frowned. “Sorry, that was kind of TMI.”

“I’m lucky to have the husband I have,” said Jeannie. “I really am.”

“You sound happy. It’s good. Listen, I’ve got to take care of tomorrow’s incoming shipment from the mine. I’ll see you next supply, hopefully. If not… try to find some way to get that stuff over, please? And thanks for sending the letter. I promise there’s nothing classified in it; you can read it if you want. I just had to tell my mom I’m okay.”

“It’s no problem,” she said, and it really wasn’t. Her own parents had died some time ago, and she wished every day she could still give her mom a call just to check in – even if they hadn’t had a perfect relationship. War really did drive home how important family was.

Addams took off then, leaving Jeannie alone in the dim sun. The planet itself wasn’t exactly a prize, with its dim sun and generally cold days, but it was sufficient to host a small mining outpost, and it didn’t have a Stargate which meant that it was – at least somewhat – safe from Goa’uld, Tok’ra, or anybody else who might want it. The discovery of trinium had been an accident after they’d considered it for a Gamma Site, which had radically transformed the ISA ambitions for it.

Despite its differences from Earth, Jeannie couldn’t help but feel it reminded her of the forests in Canada. The base here wasn’t an underground base like many of the others apparently were, which is why it required a shield generator – and getting that up and running had been a nice challenge.

But it would be nice to get home.

*

Three days out from the mining base the ship had to drop out of subspace due to a blip on the hyperdrive system which Jeannie couldn’t quite figure out. That had been bad enough, but they received a long-range communication from one of their Tok’ra allies. The Goa’uld had launched an attack on a key Tok’ra genetics facility – which was apparently their only location dedicated to their study of symbiote genetics – and the _Elizabeth II_ was the only allied ship within range.

The Tok’ra fleet – such that it was – was unable to mount any kind of resistance, so Colonel Loxley had ordered her to get the hyperdrive ready to come to their aid. It hadn’t been an easy order to carry out, but they’d managed it.

In spite of the dire consequences of inaction on her ship’s part, Jeannie couldn’t help but feel mixed about defending the Tok’ra. They had provided hyperdrive technology, true, but Jeannie didn’t want to be involved in a space battle so far from Earth and the rest of the EDF.

Their destination had been an isolated moon far from any Stargates, and Jeannie had been stationed on the bridge her every waking moment.

“Colonel, we’re almost ready to drop out of hyperspace,” said Jeannie. The colonel nodded and signalled to Cakebread to ready the Tau cannon – the first major test of the technology. The weapon couldn’t be initialised whilst in subspace, which meant they couldn’t attack immediately on arrival. The Tok’ra stationed at the outpost said that only one ha’tak ship had arrived to take the facility, and that their shield would hold – hopefully – until the _Elizabeth II_ arrived.

“Exiting hyperspace in 3, 2, 1…” she said, and then she ship juddered back into real space just behind the ha’tak.

“Tau cannon initialising…” said Major Cakebread. “Railguns fired.”

The opening battery of railguns was meant to weaken the shields and give the Tau cannon enough time to whir into function. The technology was totally Earth based, although it was informed by the various technologies they’d bought, stolen or been given over the years, and Jeannie hoped it would work.

The ha’tak opened fire on them almost instantly, giving the Tok’ra outpost a temporary reprieve. The ship’s shield could withstand multiple hits from Goa’uld weaponry, but not _too_ many before they’d be left without a shield generator. And Jeannie couldn’t fix a broken shield generator in combat.

“Enemy fighters attempting to board via rings!” exclaimed Jeannie suddenly, and activated the override that would cancel the transport beam mid-transport.

“Tau cannon status?” That was Loxley, who sounded almost frantic – which for him meant something more than his usual staid self, but not much. Jeannie was positively _terrified_.

“Ready to fire,” affirmed Cakebread. “Direct hit!”

Jeannie could see that from the viewport – the high-energy beam hit the attack, and its shield even flickered slightly, but held.

“Major, ready to fire again!” ordered Loxley.

“Second railgun barrage fired,” stated Cakebread, though Jeannie could see the tension all across his face. “Tau cannon initialising.”

The Tau cannon couldn’t be fired continuously – aside from the technical limitations due to Earth inexperience with the technology, doing so would burn out the components regardless.

Jeannie looked down at her terminal. One of the lights was flashing, what did that mean again? She let out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding.

“Colonel, ring transport override failed… Jaffa have boarded the ship!”

“Shut the front door!” he said, and for a moment Jeannie thought he’d been swearing politely, and then realised that ‘front door’ meant the door to the ring transport chamber.

“Done!”

She looked over to Sandrine, who had her own terminal on the bridge to oversee all AIs and automated systems.

“Activating the turret array!” she said triumphantly, furiously picking away at the keys on her terminal.

The turrets were another new, untested technology – automated defensive guns which barked unnerving taunts and statements at an invading force, before firing with either an energy weapon or metal projectiles.

“Firing Tau cannon,” said Cakebread again, and Jeannie looked up from her terminal to watch the progress. The beam struck the enemy ship again, and this time the shield disappeared. “Fuck the Goa’uld!” said Cakebread. “Firing railguns.”

“Colonel, the Jaffa have broken through the doors,” said Jeannie anxiously.

“ _Merde!_ Colonel, the turret array has stalled.”

The Colonel appeared strained. He’d fought in Iraq – twice – but this space dogfight was a different beast entirely. Now, with Jaffa on the ship… Jeannie felt like she should be crying, but she wasn’t. What was that? Shock? She supposed she had killed the first transport of Jaffa, but that didn’t seem important right now. What was?

“The turret array!” said Sandrine suddenly, “He is active!”

Jeannie patched herself into Sandrine’s feed and saw the primary defence turret down two enemy Jaffa.

 _“I don’t want to kill you,”_ it buzzed in her earpiece. _“I’m sorry.”_

And then it said something else, probably the same thing again, just in Goa’uld this time.

“Colonel, more Jaffa! They’ve disabled our ring override somehow,” said Jeannie.

Some Machine software had worked up a rudimentary ring system override that should, in theory, allow the ship sole control over use of the rings. The Goa’uld had obviously figured out some way around it, no doubt due to their thousands of years of experience with the technology.

“This is Colonel Loxley. BT-1 and 2 prepare to take back the ring room. _Immediately._ ”

 _“Jeanne, the ship Machine, he is reporting an attack on our system,”_ said Sandrine via the earpiece.

“Fourth railgun barrage!” said Cakebread, momentarily jolting Jeannie away from her terminal to look at the viewport. The ha’tak looked to be in poor shape, but the railgun barrage did no damage as they’d managed to restore the shield.

“Readying Tau cannon,” said Cakebread quickly. “We’ll get that shield down again soon, sir.”

“See to it, Major,” said the Colonel. He hadn’t sat down for at least two hours, noted Jeannie absently. Ever since she’d reported that they were nearing the Tok’ra outpost he’d stood to oversee the rest of the bridge.

 _“How’s that attack coming, Sandrine?”_ asked Jeannie. _“Let’s have some good news, please!”_

_“The Machine, he is resisting. But the Goa’uld virus… merde, the virus is adapting to the Machine!”_

The woman looked frantic, which was basically how Jeannie felt. The Goa’uld virus was adapting to the Machine software; what if it infected the whole system?

“Colonel, we have a problem,” she said.

“What now?”

“The Goa’uld loaded a virus onto our system, and we think it’s going to infect the Machine software.”

The Colonel paled. Machine software controlled many of the ship’s more important systems, and a virus would render them unable to enter hyperspace or use the ring systems. They’d be stranded, ripe for Goa’uld attack and destruction.

“Firing Tau cannon,” said Cakebread, interrupting the Colonel.

“What’s the status on our shield, Miller?”

“Within acceptable range,” she said. _“Sandrine, I’m going to recommend we shut the Machine system down. Can you isolate the turret software?”_

_“Oui.”_

“Colonel, we’re going to shut off the Machines. We’ll be hyperspace crippled until we fix the issue, but they can’t use the rings anymore.”

“As you see fit, Dr Miller.” He paused. “Open a channel to the Tok’ra base; we’re going to need an update.”

Unlike earlier systems, the communications array on the new BC-304H ships had been designed to work more efficiently with those of Goa’uld and Asgard ships. What would be a fairly complex operation on earlier ships required barely any effort on the newer models, so Jeannie opened a video channel and displayed it on the monitor.

“Colonel Loxley,” said the Tok’ra scientist. “What is the problem? Is the ha’tak too powerful? Shall we evacuate to your ship?”

“We have a problem, A’as,” said the Colonel. A’as was the name of the Tok’ra symbiote, Jeannie remembered; the Colonel hadn’t been told of the host, which Jeannie thought was rather rude. “Our rings are down, and the shield is proving harder to crack than we’d thought.”

The Tok’ra swore in Goa’uld, then looked down abruptly.

“This is Ea. A’as is—troubled. I can send you a file which will disable the shield. The Council will punish me greatly, but A’as thinks it necessary.”

“Go ahead.”

That was a big trade – any program capable of disabling Goa’uld shields would be of use on Tok’ra ships, at least if they hadn’t modified their shields somehow. But she supposed A’as and Ea thought it worth their lives, and the lives of all the people at the outpost.

“Dr Miller, do what you do,” ordered Loxley. “Ea, we’ll have you safe and sound in no time.”

“Thank you, Colonel. We will keep the Jaffa at bay on this end.”

The communication ended, so Jeannie cut the feed.

The program Ea had sent them was written in Goa’uld code, which Jeannie had been supposed to learn over the course of her training. She’d got the basics down, but this was something else entirely… She scanned it, and it seemed okay, so she prepared to send it through a communication channel to the Goa’uld craft.

“Readying railgun barrage at your convenience, Dr Miller,” said Cakebread.

“Goa’uld shield is down!”

“Fifth railgun barrage,” said Cakebread. “Goa’uld ship is down! Got the bastards.”

“BT-1 and 2 what’s our status on the Jaffa boarders?” asked Loxley. “Good. This is Colonel Loxley. We have successfully downed the Goa’uld ship and defended against the Jaffa boarding party. Well done, crew.”

_“Sandrine, can we see about reactivating our rings?”_

_“With or without the Machine? The virus is contained, but he will not stay if the Machine comes back.”_

“Dr Miller, patch us in to the Tok’ra outpost. See if they’re done with their Jaffa. Let’s get this wrapped up.”

“Of course, Colonel.”

Absently, Jeannie assumed that eventually the shock and distress would hit her all at once. But for now she simply got on with what she had to do, since this was life now.

*

After the _Elizabeth II_ had been sidetracked by the Tok’ra rescue, Loxley had asked Jeannie to overclock the hyperdrive to get them home sooner rather than later. They’d been taken at least six days out of their way, after counting the shield generator failure back at the mining outpost. They’d still been three days out from Earth even after that, and to Jeannie the time had passed more slowly than anything she’d ever thought.

She’d had more than enough time to deal with the fact that she’d killed those enemy Jaffa. It hadn’t been a hand at a trigger death: that would have felt different even though Jeannie knew that, intellectually, that it was the same. Her action had caused their death, but if she hadn’t done that they would have been killed by the turrets or by the men in the boarding teams anyway.

But that didn’t really help. What had helped, in the end, was mindlessly working on eliminating the Goa’uld virus. The Tok’ra scientists had given it a look, but none of them had any experience with that sort of Goa’uld code. They were mainly geneticists and biologists, although they were all rather quiet about what, exactly, they researched.

But Jeannie – with the help of Sandrine – had managed to fix the damage caused by the virus and isolate the Machine software so that they could test it out. The hyperdrive was the first thing they put under manual control, but that was only a temporary solution – it required constant monitoring from a specialised Machine system to free Jeannie up to work with other systems. That way BC-304H ships could run with minimal amounts of crew, allowing the ISA officers to be spread across a larger range of ships.

Jeannie understood the reasoning behind it, but it was pretty annoying when it meant having to find silly workarounds like the ones they’d been using. She was technically off duty, so she’d spent some time in the mess catching up on her calories. Apparently the way she dealt with the stress of being aboard a starship involved forgetting to eat and then eating everything she’d missed all at once. She supposed it could be worse.

 _“Miller, we’re almost home,”_ said Cakebread across the communications channel. _“Better get to the bridge.”_

She glanced down at the rather unappetising meal and decided not to finish it. With any luck she’d be back at home and could get something nicer.

The BC-304H had elevators as well as manual access ladders, so Jeannie preferred to use those. Soon enough she was out on the bridge, and just in time too – they exited hyperspace almost as soon as she’d arrived.

She cast her gaze over to the viewport and saw, to her horror, the Earth Defence Fleet engaged against a Goa’uld attack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A'as is the Hittite god of knowledge, and Ea is the Mesopotamian god from which he is derived (Enki).


	5. Chapter 5

_Earth space_

“Fire the Tau cannon!” barked Loxley. “Miller, patch us into the EDF communications channel.”

It took her a few moments to gather herself, but Jeannie opened a channel to all EDF frequencies.

“This is Colonel Loxley, _HMS Elizabeth II_. What’s our status?”

A video feed from the _Daedalus_ , one of the earliest BC-304s produced by the Americans, appeared on the monitor.

_“This is Colonel Caldwell. I’m in Command of the EDF. We need to take out the flagship – some sort of advanced ha’tak warship. Thank God you guys arrived when you did – you’re the only Tau-equipped ship in the damned fleet.”_

“Understood,” said Colonel Loxley. “Cakebread, fire the cannon at that bloody mothership!”

“Done, sir.”

“Colonel,” said Jeannie suddenly, “what about the Tok’ra shield disabler?”

The Colonel hesitated for just a moment before nodding.

“Worth a try,” he agreed. “Get to it!”

Jeannie nodded and set it in motion. It was a long shot, but if they could use it to disable the enemy shield they’d be in a much, much more tenable position. The problem was that nothing about the Goa’uld was standardised in quite the same way as Earth technology. Different System Lords had access to newer, older or just different versions of the same technology and software, and what worked on one System Lord’s fleet might not work on another’s.

“The advanced ha’tak seems to be immune, but maybe the others aren’t. I’ll see what I can do,” said Jeannie.

“Tau cannon fired! Direct hit, sir, but no change to the shield status. Initialising Tau cannon,” said Cakebread. “First railgun barrage!”

“Launch the F-302s!” ordered Loxley. “And the A-X01s!”

The A-X01s were a quartet of experimental spacedrones controlled by specialised Machine software for use in space combat. They hadn’t ever been combat tested, but Jeannie supposed now was as good a time as any.

“Colonel Caldwell, this is Loxley. We have a program which disables Goa’uld shielding. When we take out of a shield – whether by Tau or otherwise – move in fast. They don’t always work.”

_“Understood, Colonel.”_

“Firing Tau cannon!” said Cakebread. “Second railgun barrage.”

Jeannie looked up from her terminal. The advanced ha’tak’s shield flickered out, the ship itself destroyed by combined railgun fire from no less than six EDF ships. Useful, but not enough – Jeannie could _see_ six more standard ha’tak ships through the viewport, and her terminal blinked with six more she couldn’t immediately see.

“Sir, the Goa’uld have managed to bombard the African shipyards!” declared Sergeant Peters. “And—they’ve launched an attack on London, Beijing… and New York.”

Jeannie went cold. Immediately she located the ships responsible for the London attacks and sent the Tok’ra program over the communications channel. It worked – once. The other ships’ shields held, and despite her actions only one got destroyed by a passing BC-304.

“Firing Tau cannon, sir,” said Cakebread, this time far more muted.

_“Sandrine, how are the A-X01s doing?”_

_“The Machines, they are magnifique! The deathgliders are in pursuit, and then our pilots are winning!”_

“Third railgun barrage!”

One thing Jeannie felt thankful for, more than any other piece of technology aboard the ship, was its shield. They’d sustained three direct hits and thus far had experienced no real damage – but that couldn’t keep up.

“Colonel, we need to start working on those evasive manoeuvres,” she said. “The shield’s taking damage!”

“Understood. Peters – get on it.”

Jeannie felt every bit of the terror that Loxley would feel. Her family was in London, too; they _had_ to defend against this attack or… or Jeannie didn’t know if she could go on.

“Fire the warheads, Cakebread.” It was Loxley. All BC-304s came equipped with a number of nuclear devices – the exact amount varied, but Jeannie knew the BC-304H class ships carried only four. “We’ve got to get the birds out the air.”

“Understood, sir. Initialising launch sequence.”

Jeannie knew that some defence plans entailed the use of national nuclear stockpiles in case of an attack within Earth atmosphere. She also knew that those plans were only supposed to be used if the Goa’uld entered Earth’s atmosphere. Which was what she was supposed to be preventing.

“Fourth railgun barrage,” said Cakebread. “Nuclear ordnance en route.”

“Where are the damned Ancient drones?” said Loxley. “This is absurd!”

Jeannie barely registered his words as she watched two ha’taks explode upon warhead impact. The others died against the ships’ shields, and with it their hope of an easier battle. Jeannie looked down at her terminal again. Two ha’tak blips faded out, clearly destroyed by other EDF ships.

Eight enemy ships total, three of which were launching another orbital attack on the London shipyards.

“Tau cannon fired. Fifth railgun barrage.”

“We have lost two A-X01s, Colonel!” said Sandrine. “The others are recalibrating.”

One downside to the Machine software on the prototype space drones was also a feature – each one communicated, and after a loss they would need to recalibrate tactics and formations.

“Colonel, the Goa’uld fleet is retreating!” Jeannie almost couldn’t believe it even though she’d been the one to say it. She still felt empty, worried that the attack had destroyed wherever Maddie and Kaleb were.

“Not if I have anything to do about it,” he snapped. “Cakebread, railgun the fuckers back to whatever pond they crawled out of.”

“Sixth railgun barrage.” He appeared strained, which was honestly better than Jeannie felt. “Seventh railgun barrage. Ha’tak down, sir.”

There enemy ships made it out alive, dropping into hyperspace and escaping. Jeannie stared blankly out of the viewport to where Britain was.

What would she find when they returned?


End file.
